Opportunities
for Students
Harvard Radcliffe Institute is a cross-disciplinary laboratory of ideas that brings together students, scholars, and practitioners to engage with issues that can only be fully understood by drawing on research from across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, and professions.
The Institute is unique among Harvard schools: Although we do not award degrees, we offer unparalleled opportunities for undergraduates and graduate students. Harvard Radcliffe Institute provides learning and research experiences that are difficult to find in a traditional classroom setting. Radcliffe students work directly with our fellows and faculty, providing unique opportunities for mentorship, and they work across departmental boundaries, connecting with peers across the University. Harvard Radcliffe Institute enriches the Harvard student experience by fostering interdisciplinary, engaged scholarship focused on the most pressing issues of our time.
Opportunities for Harvard Undergraduates Opportunities for Harvard Graduate Students Student Employment Opportunities
Opportunities for Harvard Undergraduates
Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program
The Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program provides $1,500 stipends per project to support the research, creative, and service work of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students on topics related to the Radcliffe Engaged focus areas. Applications are currently being accepted for Academic Year 2022–23. All applications must be received by 11:59 PM EST on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant ProgramLaw, Education, and Justice Working Groups
Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Law, Education, and Justice (LEJ) working groups center dialogue and give students the opportunity to engage deeply and build community around important topics within LEJ. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Law, Education, and Justice Working GroupsCarol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships
Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships provide funding to Harvard undergraduates to do research in the Schlesinger Library's collections. Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library is committed to supporting students to pursue their own research. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Carol K. Pforzheimer Student FellowshipRadcliffe Research Partnerships
The Radcliffe Research Partnership (RRP) program matches Harvard College students with Radcliffe fellows in a research and mentorship program. Fellows act as mentors, while students provide research assistance, acquire valuable research skills, and participate in the Institute’s rich intellectual life. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
More on Radcliffe Research PartnershipsCall for Student Art Submissions
The Presidential Initiative on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery is issuing a call for student art submissions to support a virtual walking tour. We encourage submissions that reflect student perspectives and connect to the history of slavery and the African American experience at Harvard. This opportunity is open to all undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in a Harvard degree program. We are no longer accepting submissions for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Student Art SubmissionsHarvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant Program
The Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant Program provides $1,500 stipends per project to support the research and creative work of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students on the topic of Harvard and the legacy of slavery, broadly defined. Applications are due by 11:59 PM ET on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant ProgramEmerging Leaders Program (ELP)
The Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) is a youth leadership development program partnering local high school sophomores with current Harvard undergraduates in a mentoring relationship. Together, mentees and mentors challenge limited conceptions of who can be a leader as they build critical skills to drive positive change. Applications for the 2022–2023 academic year are currently open and accepted on a rolling basis. The deadline to apply to be an ELP mentor is Sunday, September 25 (priority deadline Monday, September 5).
More on the Emerging Leaders ProgramRadcliffe Community-Based Student Internships
The Radcliffe Community-Based Student Internship (CBSI) program matches Harvard students with community organizations, based largely in the greater Boston area, for paid spring term internships. The program aims to foster community engagement by providing experiential learning opportunities to students that have real-world impact, while building new, meaningful relationships among community-based organizations, Harvard students, and the Institute. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Community-Based Student InternshipsStudent Advisory Board
Student Advisory Board (SAB) members shape student-related programs and experiences and represent the Institute at their respective schools and departments. Through interdisciplinary and engaged work, SAB members collaborate with students across Harvard schools, departments, and classes to shape and share Radcliffe resources and opportunities with other Harvard students. Applications are currently being accepted for academic year 2022–23. All applications must be received by 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Student Advisory Board
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Opportunities for Harvard Graduate Students
Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program
The Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program provides $1,500 stipends per project to support the research, creative, and service work of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students on topics related to the Radcliffe Engaged focus areas. Applications are currently being accepted for Academic Year 2022–23. All applications must be received by 11:59 PM EST on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant ProgramGraduate Student Fellowships
PhD candidates at all Harvard faculties who plan to finish writing their dissertation in 2022–2023 are invited to apply. Graduate student fellows participate in the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program by attending all weekly fellows’ talks and lunches and are invited, though not required, to present their own work in a talk to the fellows. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Graduate Student FellowshipsLaw, Education, and Justice Working Groups
Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Law, Education, and Justice (LEJ) working groups center dialogue and give students the opportunity to engage deeply and build community around important topics within LEJ. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Law, Education, and Justice Working GroupsCall for Student Art Submissions
The Presidential Initiative on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery is issuing a call for student art submissions to support a virtual walking tour. We encourage submissions that reflect student perspectives and connect to the history of slavery and the African American experience at Harvard. This opportunity is open to all undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in a Harvard degree program. We are no longer accepting submissions for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Student Art SubmissionsHarvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant Program
The Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant Program provides $1,500 stipends per project to support the research and creative work of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students on the topic of Harvard and the legacy of slavery, broadly defined. Applications are due by 11:59 PM ET on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Student Grant ProgramRadcliffe Community-Based Student Internships
The Radcliffe Community-Based Student Internship (CBSI) program matches Harvard students with community organizations, based largely in the greater Boston area, for paid spring term internships. The program aims to foster community engagement by providing experiential learning opportunities to students that have real-world impact, while building new, meaningful relationships among community-based organizations, Harvard students, and the Institute. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2021–2022 academic year.
More on Community-Based Student InternshipsStudent Advisory Board
Student Advisory Board (SAB) members shape student-related programs and experiences and represent the Institute at their respective schools and departments. Through interdisciplinary and engaged work, SAB members collaborate with students across Harvard schools, departments, and classes to shape and share Radcliffe resources and opportunities with other Harvard students. Applications are currently being accepted for academic year 2022–23. All applications must be received by 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 5, 2022.
More on the Student Advisory BoardNews & Ideas
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Join us on Tuesday, August 9, for a Virtual Radcliffe Book Talk with Olivia Laing, the author of Everybody: A Book about Freedom. In the book, Laing explores the concept of bodily autonomy, along the way looking at such complicated historical figures as Sigmund Freud, Malcom X, and Andrea Dworkin (whose papers, incidentally, are housed in our Schlesinger Library). Click on our Linktree for details! IMAGE: Book talk information superimposed over a photo of the author, looking into the distance in an urban setting while resting her arm on a concrete balcony. 📷 Sophie Davidson
Did you know that 38 percent of women suffer from a chronic illness? In a Virtual Radcliffe Book Talk one Tuesday, July 26, the award-winning writer, poet, and editor Meghan O’Rourke RI ’15 will read from and discuss her most recent book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (Riverhead Books, 2022). She researched the book—born from her New Yorker article “What’s Wrong with Me?”—during her fellowship year, consulting medical historians and researchers on the topic of chronic illness, of which she herself is a sufferer. Click on the link in our profile to registerer the talk. IMAGE 1: A portrait of O'Rourke smiling. Photo by David Surowiecki IMAGE 2: The cover of The Invisible Kingdom, which features an illustration of a human body in lines that resemble the map of the nervous system.
Gala Porras-Kim’s most recent work gives new life to sacred objects held in museum collections. Precipitation for an Arid Landscape—which grew out of research Gala Porras-Kim conducted during her time at Radcliffe, when she was the 2019–2020 David and Roberta Logie Fellow—presents new work that explores how sacred objects continue to perform their original functions once they enter museum collections and are subject to institutional paradigms of classification, conservation, and display. Porras-Kim was drawn to Radcliffe because it enabled her research-focused approach to art making—and for its proximity to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, whose collections she was interested in, specifically items dredged from the Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá, a Maya site in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. With the help of Radcliffe’s curator of exhibitions, Meg Rotzel, Porras-Kim partnered with museum staff to develop the exhibition. This video, our magazine’s first-ever digital feature, serves as an introduction to art at the Institute as well as this body of work, which has been making art-world headlines since it began its multisite debut. Through the commentary of Rebecca Mendoza Nunziato—an MDiv candidate at Harvard Divinity School and summer 2022 fellow in pre-Columbian studies at Dumbarton Oaks who identifies as Chicana—we also learn more about the impact of Porras-Kim’s artwork, which manages to imbue these sacred objects with new life by once again recontextualizing them. In a special video feature on our website, learn more about how her wide-ranging and multisited exhibition came to be. Click the link in our bio to watch. IMAGE: In the foreground, a rough square slab resembling stone, slick with water, which pools in its nooks and crannies. It is made of recently harvested copal mixed with dust from the Peabody Museum’s collection of Mayan items dredged from the Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá and is sprinkled with Cambridge rainwater collected in Radcliffe Yard. Photo by Kevin Grady
